How Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity Was Proven Correct a Century Ago This Week

American Thinker ^ | 05/27/2019 | Salim Mansur

[SeekAndFind]

Some six months after the Great War of 1914-18 ended, Arthur Eddington travelled at the head of a team on a scientific expedition to the island of Principe off the coast of Equatorial Guinea in West Africa. He headed one of the two teams of astronomers assigned by a Joint Permanent Eclipse Committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society of Britain to observe and record photographically the full solar eclipse scheduled to take place on May 29, 1919.

At the time under Portuguese rule, Principe was selected as one of the two sites – the other was Sobral in the Brazilian Nordeste – from where the total solar eclipse and its full effect could be best observed. The expedition was proposed by Eddington, a rising star among British astronomers, to test Einstein’s general theory of relativity published in the middle of the Great War.

Eddington’s expedition to Principe a century ago tested and confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity as the single most outstanding scientific achievement in history by one individual. For more than two centuries Newton’s theory of gravitation, of space and time and motion, had stood as the definitive theory in explaining the mechanics of the universe, and had marked a paradigmatic shift in thinking that characterized the birth of the modern world as Newtonian.

Einstein’s theory when confirmed signified a revolution of even greater magnitude in scientific thinking than what Newton wrought with the publication of his Principia in 1687.

In 1916, Einstein published “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity” in the journal Annalen der Physik. Eddington was one of the very few individuals who grasped the implication of Einstein’s theory and was selected by Frank Dyson, the head of the Royal Astronomical Association, to witness and record the full solar eclipse

[caddie]

You are so right.

When we occupy the new states of Reagan, Jefferson, and Trump after CW2, maybe we can insist on no right turn on red, no internet, no cellphones, no dishwashers, no cable, no TV.

Radio, ham, shortwave, OK. The rest you have to build and operate experimentally.

Only vinyl, too.

Gold standard.

Would be a better world.

[caddie]

It was a signal to licence. To cheap ease. To doing things the easy way. To getting your way NOW without waiting.

It was the same idea as Nixon's Monday holidays, where real events were celebrated on phony days just so the union scum could have their three-day weekends, and the globalists would avoid their hangover absenteeism, circumventing the associated losses.

[northislander]

Tesla debunked relativity theory...

[poconopundit]

There was clearly an apogee in film-making in the 1950s. Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. It was ok to be mischievous from time to time, but you still needed to adhere to the rule of civil society.

If Trump can make a dent in the the State of Dependency and Lawlessness, America can get to a better place. His praise of the American flag and kids mowing lawns is high leadership.

Reverence will return when morality, faith, and Thanksgiving for the gifts of God are more deeply felt.

I like Candace Owens’ phrase: People need to be mindful they are “Victors not Victims”.

[TexasGator]

“It was a signal to licence. To cheap ease. To doing things the easy way. To getting your way NOW without waiting.”

LOL. It freed us from sitting idly in obedience to a non-thinking machine.